


Adaptation

by LaVieEnRose



Series: The One Where Justin Loses His Hearing [72]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Allergies, Chronic Illness, Deaf Character, Established Relationship, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 12:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16492544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVieEnRose/pseuds/LaVieEnRose
Summary: Justin's working on his bad habits.





	Adaptation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatAj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAj/gifts).



Brian and I grew up in really different houses, and I think he forgets that. I can't really blame him. I mean, now, looking at the two of us side by side, him in is Hugo Boss and me in my paint-splattered sweats, which of us are you going to guess came from money? But it comes up every once in a while, and it's always funny for both of us when it does, because after this many years as a Society Man Brian's acclimated pretty well, but some of this shit is still inbred. 

Like one time when we got an invitation for Isabel's daughter's dressage tournament. 

**There's a horse on this invitation,** Brian said to me. **Is this like...clothes for horses?**

**No, it's horse dancing.**

He stared at me. **Did I forget how to sign? Did you just say horse dancing?**

**Yeah, you make the horse move to a rhythm, and it's like graceful stepping...it's a whole thing. I think it's pretty hard to do. If Elizabeth is competing she's probably really good.**

**Horse dancing.**

I shrugged.

**Please tell me you didn't do this.**

**Me on a horse?**

**True.** He held up the envelope. **So I guess you're not coming with me to this thing.**

**No, my throat would close up. You're going to go?**

**Sure,** he said, turning the invitation over. **I want to see a horse dance.**

It's not just country club bullshit, though. I mean, the two of us are just a couple of fuckin' white Christians, on the one hand, but on the other there's a very, very different vibe in a Mayflower-spawned WASPy mid-century proto-McMansion than in a rented-by-the-month second-generation Irish Catholic spilt-level. And it's something we're constantly figuring out, discovering little ways our baggage is still weighing us down, because Jesus, for two guys who both came from some fucked up families, we're carrying around some different crap.

Like, for example, in the Taylor household, we did not yell. 

Sure, Dad bent the rules a little when he found out I was gay, or when he had a bad day at the office, or when mom didn't have dinner ready the minute he wanted him to, but it was always very clear that that was an exclusive man of the house privilege that mom and Molly certainly didn't have and that I probably never would either if I didn't stop being such a submissive pansy-ass limp-wristed shrinking violet and other such euphemisms for a certain kind of boy. The rest of us tiptoed around him, closed doors, averted our eyes, pretended we didn't hear him, smiled for the family pictures. You didn't cry, you didn't flinch, and you never, ever yelled back. 

When a storm is coming, you either find a safe place to hide or you get the fuck out of there, and I became very good at both of those things. I hid myself in half-truths and downright lies, saying what I needed to say and being the person I needed to be so I wouldn't be the one on the receiving end of an explosion or, if Dad was feeling a little more composed, a silent treatment or a long, long guilt trip. And when I couldn't hide, I got the fuck out.

Which brings us to Brian, and Brian is well...Rage.

I'm not saying Brian yells at me all the time, or yells at other people all the time, and no matter what he tells himself when he's at his most self-loathing, he's nothing like my dad. But no one's ever accused Brian Kinney of not being assertive, and he's long past his days when he'd punish me in some passive-aggressive way when I did something to piss him off, because I told him how much I hated that and how much my fucking PTSD-brain was not getting all the non-verbal shit he was trying to tell me, and he changed. He changed for me. He doesn't yell at me—okay, sometimes he does, he's not perfect, but he always apologizes so, so fast—because he knows it freaks me out, and he tries really really hard to just tell me what's wrong as soon as he figures it out (which sometimes takes him a little while but hey, it's not like my emotional awareness is all that flawless) because he knows that if he's just hinting around waiting for me to put shit together, it's not going to happen, I don't work that way anymore.

So I told Brian what I need and he's changed. And it's not all the time and it's not perfect, but he tries, and he tries really hard. And that's...I mean, let's be real, that barely scratches the surface of what Brian's done for me, how he's fucking turned his life over for me and what I need. He moved to New York. He learned sign language. He became, like, the world's foremost epilepsy expert. He married me. He pays roughly ten million dollars a month to keep me fed and clothed and happy. 

And in all that time he's asked two things of me: stop lying and stop walking out.

When you see a storm coming, stay.

So...I'm working on it.

**

It's not as if it's only an issue with Brian. It's just not how I operate, and I can't pretend losing my hearing hasn't' made it easier for me to just...be unobtrusive. People tend to ignore me anyway just because they don't know how to talk to me and the fact that I exist makes them uncomfortable. That's not to say there's not plenty of stuff I manage; obviously I take care of Brian, but I also handle everything with building management, and I do our taxes and handle our investments, and obviously I do fine negotiating a hearing world when Brian's not around. It's just...my definition of negotiating it means letting a lot more things go than Brian would. Than Brian does.

And sometimes, okay, sometimes he's not right. Sometimes it _is_ better not to fight every little fucking thing.

And sometimes I'm a coward. I don't know. It's hard for me to explain, and I don't know how much of it was how I was raised and how much is the bashing and how much is just something about me, but I just really, really don't want to upset anybody, ever. To like a pathological degree.

My therapist is always asking me, what's the worst that could happen? And it's decent question, because it's like...okay, yeah, one time a guy bashed me in the head, fine, is that really enough for me to think that's going to happen every time someone doesn't like me? And it's not like I do think that on any kind of logical level. And my dad never hit me besides that bitch slap that one time, and of course Brian never has, and I know he never would. But I don't know, I just feel like if someone's mad at me the world is just going to end, or something. Thank God for Klonopin?

Like I said: it's not just an issue with Brian. I don't want to piss off anyone. And that includes not wanting to do stuff that wouldn't piss off any reasonable person, just to be safe. Like send my food back at a restaurant when it isn't what I ordered, for example, as was the case one Saturday morning in December, when Brian and I were getting breakfast at this little cafe before he went in to the office for a few hours and I went to my studio. He had a couple files spread out on our tiny table and was taking notes in one of them, and I poked morosely at my waffle as the waitress walked off.

 **What's with you?** Brian asked.

**Nothing.**

He flipped to a new file. **You don't like waffles now?**

**I like waffles.**

**So eat. Too fucking skinny, it's like sleeping next to a fucking cancer patient around here.** He waved a hand dismissively. **I'm allowed to say that.**

**It's not what I ordered. I wanted French Toast.**

He gave me a _sooo?_ look. **So why'd you take it? Send it back.**

**It's fine.**

**It's clearly not that fine, because you're sitting there moping like someone pissed in it. Send it back.**

**Can you do it?**

**Justin, what the fuck do I look like, your butler? I'm trying to get this file sorted.**

I shrunk down in my seat. **It's fine.**

**Okay then, great. Eat up.**

So I did, but they didn't taste right and I was all embarrassed that Brian was seeing me be a fucking coward, so I just kind of picked at it and drank my juice while Brian grumbled his way through his eggs. Brian paid, and we stepped out into the cold sunny morning, and I had this kind of nervous feeling in my stomach that I couldn't place at the time, and I ended up asking Brian if I could come to the office with him instead of going to my studio, like a fucking kid. I think I made up some excuse about wanting to use their printer or something, I don't know.

 **Okay, but I've got to get shit done,** he told me. 

**Yeah, that's fine.**

I didn't do anything with the printer, obviously. I just sat down on Brian's couch and sketched for a while, and he didn't ask me what the fuck I was doing because he had all this work to get through. I was sneezing and my eyes were itching and I grumbled at one point that Brian needed to clean in here more often. There was no one else in the office but us, and it's not like this was the first time I was there with him on the weekend, but the whole thing felt kind of eerie for some reason, and I could feel my heartbeat in my head, and at some point I figured out that something wasn't right here.

I said, “Brian, can you come here? I don't feel good.”

He probably thought I was going to have a seizure; I did too, at the time. He came over, not too fast, not too worried, just quietly concerned in that calm way of his. **Let's get all this off, come on,** he said, because I was still in my coat and my scarf and the last thing I needed was to choke myself in it.

But once he took off my scarf I saw him say, “Oh, Sunshine,” and then he put my scarf to the side and said, **Hang on.** He went back to his desk and opened his bottom drawer and rooted around for a minute. He came back with a bottle of Benadryl. **Two big swallows, okay?**

**This is a reaction?**

**Yeah, you have hives on your neck. Drink.** He watched me. **There you go. Bless you. Deep breath, let me hear...okay. That's not so bad. Use your inhaler though, okay?**

**You have an epipen?**

**Yeah, you want it?**

I shook my head. **Just in case.**

 **Yeah, you're all set.** He ran his hands up and down my arms while I took my inhaler. **You good?** Reactions really freak him out.

I breathed in slowly. “Yeah, I think so.”

 **Okay.** He kept touching me. **See, this is why we don't fucking eat food that isn't what we ordered.**

“I had to.”

He was so frustrated with me. **Sunshine, I—**

“I know you don't,” I said. “I know you don't fucking understand me, nobody understands me, I don't understand me.”

There was so much he wanted to say, but even Brian wasn't going to argue with me right then. He sighed and pushed my hair back and said, **Okay. Have some more Benadryl, sneezy. Everything's okay.**

I swallowed and swallowed. “Okay.”

**

So it wasn't always about Brian, but because most of my life is about Brian...it was usually about Brian. 

I mean look, in my defense, Brian's a fucking drama queen, and I don't think it's that ridiculous that I believe that sometimes it's just easier not to tell him stuff he's going to fly off the handle about, because sometimes it's just truly not a big fucking deal, and he realizes that eventually, but not until after there's a whole queen-out-dust-up that sometimes I just don't fucking feel up for. But then of course if I don't tell him stuff and then he finds out later, you're looking at a way bigger queen-out-dust-up, so yeah, I guess the better option is to just be upfront with him, or he could always, you know, take it down like, _half_ a notch.

But, you know. He's done enough for me and he just worries about me and honestly he has plenty of cause to and I'm trying to be good. 

So I had to try to break some habits the winter of the whole police thing, when my therapist noticed that I was basically an endless pit of despair and I was having trouble leaving the house and talking to people and like, functioning in society. I always struggle in the winters anyway, and obviously the whole incident didn't help. I was already seeing Lauren twice a week and I was struggling even with making those so she didn't want to make me add another session, but she did want to add another medication just until I was through the bad patch, and I was game because I was having, you know, the bad thoughts again, and I don't actually enjoy having the bad thoughts.

I was walking home with this new prescription in my hand, and already I was trying to come up with a plan of how I was going to handle this with Brian. It's not like he micromanages my medical stuff or anything, but generally he doles out my meds because the bottles aren't the easiest for me to work with my hand and I'm not great at remembering whether or not I've already taken them and just because, honestly, we both prefer it that way so it's not really anyone's damn business.

So I was trying to figure out how I was going to do this, was I going to take this new one at a different time and how was I going to keep track of whether I'd taken them, maybe I could set an alarm on my phone but what if Brian saw it, maybe I should take it when I take all the others but I'd need to figure out a different place to keep it, and what if I forgot, and how was I going to explain it if I ended up being allergic and I'd need to make sure I wasn't by myself for a few days because I really shouldn't try new drugs on my own, and it wasn't until I'd sorted through all these options in my head that I remembered, oh right, I'm not supposed to be fucking doing this. 

I dragged myself home and shuffled up to where Brian was sitting with his laptop at the kitchen counter. He laughed a little when he saw me. **Yes, dear? Any reason you look like you're going to the gallows?**

I shifted my weight back and forth on my feet.

 **Spit it out,** he said.

I took the pill bottle out of my pocket and handed it to him. **Lauren wants to add this one to the rotation.**

He tried so, so hard to not have any expression, but I know his face too well. He was crushed that I wasn't stable, and mad at himself for not noticing, and worried about me starting a new medication, and God, it was so so fucking much, and this is why it's just easier not to tell him things. I wanted to just fucking turn and run out the door so badly at that moment, I can't even explain. Not run away long term or anything, just...just not be there until there were fewer feelings in the room, I don't know.

After a minute he nodded and set the bottle down. **Okay. We'll keep an eye on you for a few days, make sure it goes down easy.**

**Yeah.**

He kept watching me. **Hey.**

“Hey.”

**What's up, are you okay?**

I shrugged and swallowed. **Yeah, it's just with everything going on, she thought...I could stand to be a little happier right now.**

**No, of course, I mean, at this moment, are you okay?**

**What?**

He rested his chin on his hand, his eyes boring right into me. **Sunshine, you're shaking.**

“Oh.”

**You look like you're about to cry, are you about to cry?**

“Yeah.”

**Justin. What's wrong?**

“I don't know.” I put my hands over my face. “I'm sorry, I...this is so fucking stupid.” I just fucking hated that I'd made him worry about me, and here he was worrying about me for being upset about making him worry about me. I am such a fucking fuck-up. But sometimes it's just fucking crushing, how much it means to Brian that I'm okay, because I am not fucking okay and I can't _breathe,_ and God, could I be more of a fucking ungrateful bastard?

He loves me so much and it is so fucking scary because sometimes I don't even feel like I can stay here. Not here with Brian, just...here.

He peeled my hands off my face and looked into my eyes, and he saw everything, and God, how do you get through life with someone who can see everything you're thinking?

How does anyone get through life without it?

 **Okay, come here,** he said, and I crushed myself into his collarbone and he held me for a long time. **So good,** he said with a kiss to my forehead, after he'd let me go. **My good boy. Just right.**

So I'm working on the lying.

**

The walking out is a whole different challenge, because God, sometimes Brian's just a fucking dick, and my instinct is to get the fuck out of there until it blows over, but that doesn't work with him because he just gets pissed off that I left on top of whatever it was he was already pissed about. And it's hard to remember to be sweet and considerate of his preferred ways of handling conflict when I'm in the moment, because usually I'm pissed at him too!

I compromise by leaving the room or going out to the balcony or something, so it's not like I'm making myself unavailable, I'm just putting some distance between the two of us to give me a minute to get my thoughts together, because Brian fights _fast_ and sometimes I get tangled up and confused. Brian usually just follows me and keeps signing at me, but sometimes just taking those few steps away from him is enough for me to catch my breath and refocus, or I close my eyes for a second so he can't talk to me and that gives me a minute...I have strategies, that's what I'm saying, and they're not strategies Brian particularly likes, but at least I'm not leaving. And I'd never really found out what I would do if I couldn't have those strategies, if I couldn't get a minute.

Until the end of December, the day after we'd come back from visiting Pittsburgh for Christmas. Emily and Gwen decided last minute they wanted to have a New Year's Eve party, so of course I told them we'd go, but it turned out Brian's super fucking boring client was throwing a thing with a whole bunch of other super fucking boring people, and okay, fine, sucks to be Brian, except it turned out Brian had told him I would also be attending and hadn't even bothered to tell me, and now he was telling me I couldn't say no. The whole argument happened to come up after we'd come home from the bar with our friends, and I'd had a couple drinks because whatever, it had been a stressful week and Brian was there to make sure I didn't have seizures, and my tolerance is in the toilet since I barely drink these days, and Brian had had way more than a couple drinks because...he's Brian, so neither of us was at our most sober and sweet. 

I said, **Just tell them I'm sick or something, Jesus.**

**So then I'm the asshole who didn't stay with his sick partner on New Year's. No dice.**

**Then tell them, sorry, you had to stay home with your sick partner and come to Emily's with me!**

**I have to network,** he said. **I can drum up a lot of business here, and it's a chance for them to see me outside the office. I'll look like a human being and not a corporate robot.**

**That sounds nice, do I get to see that version of you sometime?**

**And having you there is good for business.**

I barked out a laugh. **Good for business! Which is it, the gay thing or the young thing or the sick thing or the Deaf thing, which of those makes you look like a sainted hero for having me as as your little wife. Can I guess?**

 **Clients want someone my age to be married,** he said. **It makes me look more reliable. And the fact that it's to a guy means they get to applaud themselves for being all open-minded. It's just a good marketing tool.**

**Yeah, except it's not actually 'just a good marketing tool,' it's us and our fucking New Year's that we have to spend sucking up to some clients instead of with our friends. Because what I really wanted was to kiss you at midnight in front of a bunch of people applauding themselves for not having a problem with us.**

**God, you're such a fucking girl.**

**Great, you misogynistic prick, does that mean I can go to Emily's now, since I no longer support the homosexual agenda?**

Brian snickered cruelly as he poured another drink. **You know, you'd think with the fucking importance my income has in this family—**

**Don't fucking try to act like I'm not supportive. Do I say fucking anything when you blow off plans to work? Do I give you shit when you come home in a bad mood and take it out on me?**

**Just not supportive enough to give up one night of your fucking life.**

**It's New Year's! It's New Year's with a fucking room full of ancient straight hearing people. I'm gonna be fucking miserable, and why, just so I can be your arm candy? Whatever little boost you're going to get from having me there, that's really worth it?**

He was in my face, all squinty and drunk and mean. **Jesus, fucking sue a guy for wanting to spend New Year's with you—**

**Oh, yes, this whole thing is so fucking romantic.**

**Did you consider that maybe I would also rather spend New Year's with our friends?** he signed at me. **But I do things I don't want to do because that's my fucking responsibility. I make sacrifices for this family. What the fuck do you do?**

**I make this family have a fucking soul.**

He laughed in my face. **Well, isn't that fucking adorable. What percentage of the mortgage does that cover? Does that cover your copays, Sunshine?**

You see why I want to fucking walk out sometimes? 

But he was standing right in front of me, and when I tried to take a step around him, he blocked me, and when I closed my eyes he put his hands on my face—not rough or anything, but enough so I couldn't forget he was there, which was what he wanted. So I was stuck and he wouldn't give me a fucking second, and when I opened my eyes he was signing again, and I just...broke the fucking cardinal rule of the Taylor clan. 

I yelled.

I didn't even fucking yell words, I just fucking screamed. And of course I couldn't hear it, but I could feel it in my throat and in my chest, and I just kept shouting for, I don't know, as many seconds as I could. My lung capacity isn't exactly anything to write home about.

Brian jumped about a foot when I started screaming, and after I was done he just kind of gaped at me, and then he started laughing, a little at first and slowly building. He set his glass down on the bookshelf and said, **What the fuck was that?**

I was already kind of embarrassed. **You wouldn't let me leave.**

 ** _That's_ why you have to leave?** he said, laughing harder. **Because otherwise you're going to start screaming like a crazy person?**

I shrugged. **Apparently.**

He swiped his hand over his mouth, trying to stop laughing, but it was no use. **You fucking freak,** he said, the same way a normal person might say _I love you._ **God, come here.** He put one broad palm on my back and pulled me into a kiss, then mussed up my hair with both of his hands. **You little wild animal.**

**Yeah.**

He kissed me again and touched his forehead against mine. 

**Look. I have to go to this fucking boring as shit thing, and it's going to suck, and it would suck a little bit less if you were there with me. Please?** And he looked at me with, you know, those eyes.

 **See, you could have just done that,** I said. **Fucking just asked me if I would do something instead of ordering me around.**

 **I know.** He sighed and kissed my cheek. **I'm working on it.**


End file.
